Post Foetry represented life after Foetry and life before Poets.net. For the hot stuff, go to the Poets.net forum: http://www.poetryinc.net.

Thursday, August 23, 2007

Spam Lit Poem: Anatomy of a Merged Poem Based on Proverbs

This Spam Lit poem, cobbled together with slightly familiar proverbs, arrived today in my spam box. The "poem" has a lovely resonance to it and seems to touch upon some of the thoughts and opinions of Post Foetry members. The poem even makes some sense, certainly more sense than some of the published poems I have read lately! I decided to research and then attribute each line to its creator.-

* * * * *

Nothing can be more contemptible than to suppose Public Records to be true.

I throw out this challenge to our readers: either write your own Spam Lit poem or prose (sans advertising) OR submit one (again, without advertising) that appeared in your e-mail inbox or spam box. We'll publish the what we think is the best of the best (in other words, it doesn't matter who YOU are). I'd like to see some humor and satire as well.

-

* * * * *

-

Rules

-

--Submission is free and open to everyone.

-

--However, we probably won't publish every poem or prose we receive, especially if we receive duplicate submissions.

2. Attribute the line to its original author or poet (in parentheses just like I did above), and provide a verifying link. Submissions providing verifying links are more likely to see their submission published in this blog.

-

3. No porn, gratuitous violence, hate speech, please. Such work will not be posted.

-

4. Keep them short, no more than 39 lines (just in case someone wants to attempt a Spam Lit sestina) and about 250 words for prose.

-

5. In the subject line, note Poem/Prose Submission; don't put "Spam" in the title; it might get kicked back to you.

-

6. For now, the submission period is indefinite, but we reserve the right to close this offer at any time.

-

7. NO prizes will be awarded and no payment offered.

-

8. As long as you don't attach an ad or other blurb (other than your tag line), your e-mail will remain confidential; otherwise, all bets are off. Also, you may remain anonymous or be credited as the Spam Lit author or finder.

-

9. If we don't get too many submissions, we'll acknowledge receipt; otherwise, we won't.

Bugzita

About Us

Poets.net Blog and Forum

Subscribe Now: Feed Icon

Call for Team Members and Guest Writers

Bugzita has created Post Foetry in the hope that deeply passionate poets and writers would join this blog team and publish important essays here.

We need to continue the important work started by Alan Cordle, creator of Foetry.

We are actively seeking additional team members, writers willing to post important essays here. For more information, email Bugzita.

If you do not wish to make a commitment as a team member, you may submit your essay as an MS Word or WordPerfect attachment. We will consider well-written and well-reasoned essays even if they disagree with our viewpoint.

Spam Lit

A New Post Foetry Feature

The Spam Lit Project

E-mail spam has gone "literary," at least on the Bugzita e-mail address: I suppose having "Foetry" and "Poetry" bandied about on our site invites spammers to get through to us by including bad poetry and prose (keyword spamming?) in their sales pitches--certainly no worse than some of the "valid" published poetry and prose out there.

I thought I'd start a new feature called "The Spam Lit Project," which also serves notice to spammers that their handy work will appear here (without their sales pitches, of course), along with their spammer IDs and e-mail addresses.

Spam Lit Spammers tend to use snippets of obscure public domain works for their nefarious purposes, so attributing Spam Lit is nearly impossible, certainly time-consuming. If we post a snippet not in the public domain, please e-mail us, and we'll attribute it properly.

If spammers send Spam Lit with advertising to the Bugzita address (or any other e-mail address associated with this site and its members' sites), it's fair game. If I can figure out how to post their IP address, I'll do that as well.

I'm all for protecting people's IDs, but I figure all bets are off for spammers.

The term is not my own original idea; it seems that the term was first coined in 2002, in a subject line of a UB at Buffalo University Poetics Listserv post. In his message, Jesse Glass predicted the future of Spam Lit:

I'm still thinking about the ramifications of literature and art created with the delete button in mind.

Mark Dery's site Shovelware offers Dery's take on Spam Lit; he posts Spam Lit work and allows comments about it.

Latest Literary News

BuzzFeed.com

StatCounter

Privacy Notice

We use third-party advertising companies to serve ads when you visit our website. These companies may use information (not including your name, address, email address, or telephone number) about your visits to this and other websites in order to provide advertisements about goods and services of interest to you. If you would like more information about this practice and to know your choices about not having this information used by these companies, click here.